Hit-and-run suspect wants search tossed

Was it legal for Wilkes-Barre police to seize hit-and-run suspect Daniel Loughnane's pickup truck without a search warrant in August 2012?

His attorney, Peter Paul Olszewski Jr., argues it wasn't. He is urging a judge to block the truck as evidence in his client's criminal case related to the death of a teenage girl on Hazle Street in Wilkes-Barre.

Prosecutors say the truck needed to be taken because Loughnane could not be located, a pending rainstorm threatened to wash away possible evidence and a spare set of keys were inside the truck, creating the possibility it could be driven away.

Luzerne County Judge Michael Vough will soon decide. Vough on Tuesday presided over hours of testimony regarding motions by Loughnane's attorneys to suppress prosecution evidence in his criminal case connected to a hit-and-run crash that killed 19-year-old Rebecca McCallick on July 24, 2012.

"The vehicle can't be seized without a warrant. There is no exception. It was in a driveway. Essentially, out of expediency, the Commonwealth seized the vehicle without a search warrant," Olszewski argued. "If someone believes police can seize a vehicle under those situations, then we have a new law in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania."

Wilkes-Barre police seized Loughnane's truck - a blue Ford F-350 Super Turbo Diesel - from his home at 71 W. Liberty St. in Ashley more than two weeks after McCallick's death.

"The vehicle was readily available to be moved," said First Assistant District Attorney Sam Sanguedolce, who said he authorized the seizure of the truck after Loughnane's then-attorney Peter Moses told prosecutors about an extra set of keys in a utility box in the rear of the truck.

At that point, the truck was "mobile" to anyone, including Loughnane, Sanguedolce said.

Police were led to the truck after McCallick's boyfriend, John Schenck IV, who witnessed McCallick being run over, identified it as the truck that killed her, Wilkes-Barre police Detective David Sobocinski said.

Sobocinski said he moved to seize the vehicle without a warrant because of the rain coming, the keys in the utility box, stonewalling by Loughnane's family and friends about his whereabouts and because his department was so swamped with calls that night he couldn't get backup to watch the car while he typed up a search warrant. He said he eventually obtained a search warrant after the vehicle was moved to police headquarters.

"I say shame on the City of Wilkes-Barre, shame on the watch commander and shame on the Wilkes-Barre police for not sending a police officer to watch that vehicle," Olszewski said. "Was there anything more important happening in the city that night than your investigation into the death of this girl?"

Schenck's identification, Olszewski claimed, came after police showed him a series of photos of trucks, including one widely distributed to the media. The photo that prosecutors believe depicts Loughnane's truck, a blurred image of a truck traveling down Wilkes-Barre Boulevard just prior to the crash, should not be admitted as evidence because the original surveillance footage was not preserved, he said.

A single screen grab print out, saved by a non-computer savvy surveillance employee of the Hawkeye security system, can not be authenticated and can't be compared with the original video to see if it was altered in any way, said Loughnane's other attorney, Melissa Scartelli.

"We cannot cross-examine a still image of a moving video without the original," Scartelli told the judge. "It was their duty to collect and preserve evidence."

Without the photo in evidence, Schenck's identification is tainted, Olszewski said.

"If the court sustains our motion, everything falls," Olszewski said.

Prosecutors say there's no evidence that the photo influenced Schenck's identification of Loughnane's truck or that he even saw it prior to identifying Loughnane's truck outside his house. Schenck's father spotted the truck, snapped a photo and sent it to Schenck, they said.

As the eyewitness, Schenck's identification of the truck is independent and corroborating evidence of the photo, they say.

In the end, admission of the truck into evidence could be moot, since no DNA was found on the vehicle that linked Loughnane to the crash. However, prosecutors previously have traced Loughnane's whereabouts that night and say the timeline of his actions are consistent with when the crash occurred. Additionally, they say, Loughnane made incriminating comments to an ex-girlfriend that she interpreted as a confession.

Surveillance footage, they say, shows Loughnane was at the Gentleman's Club 10 strip club in Wilkes-Barre Township until about 2 a.m. July 24, leaving in his truck with a friend. The friend told police Loughnane then dropped him off on Scott Street in Wilkes-Barre and traveled south. McCallick was struck minutes later.

Schenck testified at Loughnane's preliminary hearing that McCallick, who a forensic pathologist has said was under the influence of a significant amount of marijuana at the time, lied down in the middle of the road on Hazle Street after an argument with him. He yelled down to her from their apartment window to get up, then watched the truck run over her, he said.

At the same hearing in January 2013, Loughnane's ex-girlfriend, Jessie Spencer, said Loughnane once referenced the victim lying in the road.

"Let's just say Joe Schmo was driving his truck and some girl was lying in the road. Don't you think it was suicide?" he allegedly asked her.

At the time he made the comment, it had never been publicly revealed McCallick was lying in the road, so only the driver and a few others would have known that fact, prosecutors have previously said.

McCallick's death was ruled "undetermined," as officials were unable to rule whether her death was homicide, accidental or suicide, the county coroner's office previously said.

Loughnane faces a single charge of leaving the scene of an accident in which someone died, which carries a mandatory minimum sentence of one year in prison. He has never spoken publicly about the case, but his attorneys have said he maintains his innocence.

bkalinowski@citizensvoice.com

570-821-2055, @cvbobkal

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